[Closed] Normal everyday things that mess with your mind

That's just a lack of understanding.

It's more a failure of application. I understand the basics of the chemistry, but for some reason that doesn't quite reconcile it in my jumbled mind. 😕

I have very much the same problem with electricity. I can read all I like about it, work with the equations, understand components etc - but somehow it is fundamentally still "magic" in my mind.

...that there are more stars in the Universe than grains of sand on all the beaches in the World. How do you count or even estimate those numbers?

Yep, that's always blown my mind since I read it many years ago in this article (which covers some of the guesstimates).

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~gmackie/billions.html

How things that can seem like a REALLY good idea one day.....aren't the next.

Pubs - how are people prepared to pay as much for mouldy wheat or grapes as for a lovingly roasted carefully sourced coffee.

I've noticed coffee also makes people go a bit ratty and contrary too.

😉

And alcohol doesn't? 🙂

I have very much the same problem with electricity. I can read all I like about it, work with the equations, understand components etc - but somehow it is fundamentally still "magic" in my mind.

Why? You don't need to be able to visualise it in everyday terms. It just is.

Having education in Physics helps here, because instead of trying to explain things by likening things to everyday concepts, you just express it in terms of maths. Then the whole world becomes a load of maths. Which is great fun 🙂

Anyway - you can directly feel electric fields and see their effects, so it shouldn't be to hard in that case. Rub a balloon on your hair (if you have any) and then the balloon is an electron, and the wall is the positive end of the circuit. They get sucked along the wires hopping from molecule to molecule in the metal.

Anyway - you can directly feel electric fields

What Molgrips is saying is - 'go ahead and touch the bare wires, for the benefit of your understanding of science'

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"it tastes hurty"

You can "feel" magnetic fields by holding a magnet in your fist, or [my fave] by wearing a magician's magnetic ring.

In Essex there are signposts directing you to The Secret Nuclear Bunker.

Another thing that messes with my brain is David Camerons unnervingly immaculate skin on his face..
It's so, so clean, so bright and soooo tight.

We're the same age, I look 10 years older than he does.

I want to know his secret.

Been there ^^ interesting place - well worth a visit.

Why? You don't need to be able to visualise it in everyday terms. It just is.

I dunno - it just screws with my mind (as per the thread).

I get the basic maths and the physics theory. But somehow the result is still "magic".

I think I have a mind that likes to visualise and conceptualise things. And I find that difficult with electricity because any visualisation (like the typical water/plumbing/hydraulic metaphor) breaks down pretty quickly when you get into it.

I want to know his secret.

I used to have to look at a lot of pics of celebs for my job.

Botox, guaranteed.

Another thing that messes with my brain is David Camerons unnervingly immaculate skin on his face..
It's so, so clean, so bright and soooo tight.

We're the same age, I look 10 years older than he does.

I want to know his secret.

Pigspunk

Motorway bridge Lurkers

Seek refuge in the maths.

Pigs punk

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[quote=GrahamS ]I have very much the same problem with electricity. I can read all I like about it, work with the equations, understand components etc - but somehow it is fundamentally still "magic" in my mind.

I understand where you're coming from here, Graham - and I've done an electronic engineering degree, so supposedly understand electricity. It's an issue with being unable to comprehend the full details of something and having to accept some things just are.

Being an intelligent swot I made it through the first year of my degree having up to that point thought I understood all of everything I'd learnt. It was some time in my 2nd year I think when I realised that actually I was learning about stuff I didn't know everything about and had to just accept some things, which given how I'd thought about things before really messed with my mind. I think it's one of the reasons I really struggled in my third year as a lot of stuff was like that and I had trouble coping with the concept (I still don't really get the particle physics which I for some reason chose as an option).

Electricity +1

How does it [b][u]know [/b][/u]the shortest route to take?? It's not been that way before, it's not grown up in the area, it's not got a mate who's a cabbie, it's not got a map or a sat nav!

Websites that have a completely misleading name. My current puzzlement comes from www.kayak.com. Why doesn't it sell kayaks? Or at least boats of some kind?

But here is the bombshell: You weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to become you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made.

Reeeeallllly? Brain cells? Unfertilised egg cells?

This would mess with my head if it's true.

Coffee shops in general and people being prepared to pay as much for a cup of mucky hot water as they would for a delicious foamy beer

I'm trying to think of the last time I saw someone in a coffee shop keep ordering lattes until they were incapable of standing, or throwing up in the streets and fighting.

Sorry, I'm really against excessive alcohol consumption. It's ruined millions of lives generally and my marriage in particular.

Memory, how does that work? Electrical impulses or something?

Thought so

[quote=willard ]I'm trying to think of the last time I saw someone in a coffee shop keep ordering lattes until they were incapable of standing, or throwing up in the streets and fighting.

Goes to show that coffee isn't as good as beer 😉

Not that I've ever done either of those things after going to a pub to drink beer, but does anybody go to a coffee shop to spend several hours there and drink several coffees?

Funnily not many people are bothered about being overcharged or being sold overpriced items.

See ... told you ... where are all the poor socialists and communists? 😯

Locomotive Engines being transported by road on low loaders.

Driving down a motorway near an airport once, I saw an aircraft being transported across a bridge as I went under it. That broke my head.

Folk who wait on a lift to go up one floor.

Braille buttons on a multi-storey car park lift. What's a blind person doing on their own in a multi-storey car park?

They also put braille signs on the wall in American Starbuckses that say 'no smoking'.

does anybody go to a coffee shop to spend several hours there and drink several coffees?

i had a plane on treadmill type conundrum the other day. I've now forgotten it.

Not sure which has done my head in more. Why do I forget so much stuff? Its those electrons again - where did they go?

Coffee shops that sell tea. Why aren't they called 'Tea & Coffee' shops
Leaving the toilet seat up. Why! For what reason is there a need to ever do this.
Thongs. If you need to floss your bottom, you need to see a doctor.

There's no need to leave it up - leaving it up isn't an active thing you do. Putting it down is though, and there's no need to do that. You can sodding well put it down if you want it down.

Leaving the toilet seat up. Why! For what reason is there a need to ever do this.

That's an easy one, as a single male with his own house i guess i can answer this
I'm always trying to simplify my life and as i only need to sit down on the toilet once a day, approx 15 mins after having my [i]morning double espresso[/i] i feel i am conserving energy for more productive tasks by leaving the toilet seat up for the following 23 hours 55 minutes, i may pee 10 times a day which compared to the one and only time i need to sit down means i must be correct.

Just caught up with this thread.

Folk standing around with no spatial awareness who use their trolly to block an Isle while they gave a chat.

It never ceases to amaze me how one person can block off an entire eight-foot wide aisle. Do they get special training?

And people who wear woolly hats whilst sweating in a hot gym. WHY???

Young women out and about wearing a boob tube, miniskirt, and fur-lined Ugg boots. What eventuality are we preparing for here?

When you think about blinking, like count how often you do it, become aware of it.

I do this with breathing sometimes, when I'm trying to sleep. It's really, really annoying because then I've to engage my brain with something else or I can't carry on breathing automatically.

Water. In all it's forms from ice, steam or just in a glass

What breaks my head with water is, it gets bigger when it solidifies. I don't know of any other substance that does this; how can it be more dense and less dense at the same time?

People who stand still on escalators.

People who think that busy doorways/entrances to things are a great place to stop for a chat.

Groups of people who prop the bar up preventing others from seeing what ales are on tap instead of buying a pint and finding a seat.

+1 all of these. Bastards.

All those screaming teenagers waiting for Binners to leave the hotel, so they can grab his hair.

That's unlikely, he doesn't have any. Hey, maybe that's why?!

Milk

The cognitive dissonance I have with this is, people will happily chow down on milk made for calves like it's the most natural thing on Earth. Yet, if we started selling human breast milk that is [i]naturally intended for human consumption[/i] everyone would lose their shit.

Three remote control units (one for each) for 1 TV, 1 Sky Box, 1 Surround system...
Three sequences to turn on/off all of that crap.

HDMI CEC takes care of all this. I switch on a device, all the others wake up.

People who start a thread asking for advice then argue against the advice that is offered before disappearing in a huff.

Or go "thanks for the advice, I've now done something else entirely."

Leaving the toilet seat up. Why! For what reason is there a need to ever do this.

Leaving the toilet seat down. Why! For what reason is there a need to ever do this?

"Seat up" is the configuration I'm most likely to need next time I visit. Though TBH I tend to close both seat and lid when I'm done, looks neater (and avoids arguments).

how can it be more dense and less dense at the same time?

It's not. It's less dense.

Then why isn't it a gas?

Cos the molecules are not that far apart, just further than they are in water.

A solid can be organised in lots of different ways.

Two way light switches (y'know, like you get in the hall/stairs/landing), switch on downstairs, then switch off upstairs - it leaves both switches the wrong way, aaarrrgghh!!!

molgrips - Member

A solid can be organised in lots of different ways.

Though the standard organisational unit for solids remains the crew.

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Water reaches a maximum density at ~4degC

The expansion upon freezing comes from the fact that water crystallizes into an open hexagonal form. This hexagonal lattice contains more space than the liquid state

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/waterdens.html

Driving down a motorway near an airport once, I saw an aircraft being transported across a bridge as I went under it. That broke my head.

It weird enough driving under the runway at Manchester...

Driving around shetland a few years back - just following my nose and allowing myself to get lost... arrive at a set of traffic lights / level crossing type barriers. Wait there for a while, then think... surely theres not any railway lines on Shetland. Just at that moment a plane shoots by and touches down - the lights change and the barrier go up and I drive across the runway of [url= https://goo.gl/maps/s84RZdMTEaS2 ]Sumburgh Airport.[/url]

Pockets in pyjamas.

Ties.

Donald Trump

I read the other day that Trump has flip-flopped so often, he could legitimately campaign against himself.

I watched a big chunk of a trump speech last night; it was the "they're not sending their best" one but usually, you only see about 10 seconds at a time. If you listen to, say, a minute there's no missing the fact that he's just gibbering. Constant nonsequitors, losing track of what he's saying and just ending sentences halfway through with "yeah, right?" or similiar, endlessly repeating himself, laughing halfway through the joke then not really getting to the punchline. In some bits, he seems to be in dialogue with the voices in his head. Total verbal diarrhea, of the drunk-shouting-at-the-bins school. He genuinely says "I will tell you this", like Rab C Nesbitt.

That's not the bit that messes with my mind though. It's the 10000 people cheering as if he's bloomin Cicero, after a line like "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time."- where he managed to contradict himself in the space of 9 words.

Or, "it was just announced our gross domestic product— a sign of strength, right? But not for us. It was below zero. Whoever heard of this? It’s never below zero.". And he's half right, because it wasn't below zero, it was about 18 trillion dollars. God knows what the stat he was trying to invoke was.

Or where he rants about how china took urrr jurbs then says "China comes over and they dump all their stuff, and I buy it.", and they cheer at him saying he's the reason they turk urrr jurrrrrbs.

And they cheer like Jesus Christ just hit a home run. Trump's easily explainable, he's a lucky sperm who pays lots of people to tell him how great he is. But Trump fans? That messes with my mind.

Why is the last pistachio nut from the packet always unsplit?

Like.

The utterly ridiculous arrangement of light switches downstairs in my flat. There's three lights, there's three switches. Each light is near a switch, yet each switch controls a different light.

The fact that in the Netherlands its normal to rent a flat....and not have it come with a floor, or light fittings.... Because they're something you take with you when you move (how the actual faaark am I supposed to move in when it's sodding dark??!)

Moomins. Just... What?

I'm afraid the answer to the pistachio question is: the density of the object. When open, with the shell apart and away from the flesh the nut will have a higher volume and the same weight, and will therefore allow unopened nuts to sink in the packet as they have a higher density and then are subject to vibration during transport. Also, if open, they are likely to dry out more, exacerbating the issue.

(I was going to answer the electricity "easiest path" one, but I think you can Google that more easily 😉 )

Last one:

Movie posters and billing>sense!

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